Home›Support›English Support›[Resolved] Critical error when accessing ACF options - Post Types, Taxonomies and Options Pages
[Resolved] Critical error when accessing ACF options - Post Types, Taxonomies and Options Pages
This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem:
The client was experiencing a critical PHP Fatal error when trying to access ACF options in the WordPress Admin Area, specifically related to the WPML plugin.
2. We conducted tests on both our testing servers and the client's staging site. The issue was not reproducible locally but occurred on the staging site only when the Speed Optimizer plugin from SiteGround was active. We advised the client to deactivate the Memcached option in the Siteground Speed Optimizer plugin, which resolved the issue.
If this solution does not resolve your issue or seems outdated, we recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If the problem persists, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum.
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Background of the issue:
I am trying to access ACF options in the website's WordPress Admin Area. I expected to see the usual ACF settings pages.
Symptoms:
There has been a critical error on this website. PHP Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: count(): Argument #1 ($value) must be of type Countable|array, null given in /home/customer/www/lagavina.com/public_html/wp-content/plugins/sitepress-multilingual-cms/menu/post-menus/wpml-posts-listing-page.class.php:26
Questions:
How can I resolve the critical error when accessing ACF options?
What steps should I take to fix the PHP Fatal error related to the WPML plugin?
Welcome to the WPML support forum. I will do my best to help you to resolve the issue.
As per the Debug information Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual plugin is not installed on the site. It is mandatory for the proper translation of ACF fields.
Therefore please activate the Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual after a full site backup and make sure the bug exists or not. Refer to the following article for more details.
We are reluctant to install the ACFML plugin as we find it causes other issues - we run quite a number of sites with WPML, so we do have some experience.
This site (and a lot of others we manage) has been running quite happily without this problem (and without ACFML) for several years.
I should also say that we have a clone of this site for dev purposes on a separate server that does not show this issue and it also doesn't have the ACFML plugin installed.
Finally, we have found at least one support request (unresolved) for a similar issue but only where ACFML was installed. So we think it very unlikely that lack of ACFML plugin is the issue.
Apart from the dev site on a different server, we have a staging copy of the site on the same server environment as the live site - this shows similar but not identical issues. Could I give you access to the staging site to take a look at that?
Thank you for the details. We hope you have the same version of PHP and WordPress on the staging site (the one hosted on a separate server).
I am enabling the private option for the next reply. Please share the credentials to access the staging site. Also, please let us know the exact steps to reproduce the issue.
Thank you for the details and staging site credentials. I can reproduce the issue. Please allow me to make a duplicator copy of your site using the Duplicator plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/) for debugging the issue on our test servers.
Absolutely no problem, please go ahead and install the plugin and take a copy of the site, or you can take a backup using All in One WP Migration which is already installed, if that's easier. As you prefer!
Thank you for the permission. I made a copy of the site using Duplicator. We will debug it further and get back to you as soon as possible. Please wait.
I had a few rounds of testing in our testing servers and also on your staging site. Locally we are not able to reproduce the issue. On your staging site, it happens only when the Speed Optimizer plugin (from SiteGround) is active. Please refer to the following screencast for more details.
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So please verify it on your live sites after a full site backup and make sure the issue exists when the Speed Optimizer plugin is inactive.
That's fantastic, I think that is completely correct - by doing a bit more testing, it appears that by deactivating the Memcached option in the Siteground Speed Optimizer plugin, the issue is averted, so we can keep the majority of the caching options in place and only deactivate that.
I will verify everything with the person working on the site, but will not be able to do so until Friday, so please keep the ticket open until I report back with definitive confirmation in 48 hours or so.
Thank you for the feedback. Take your time. We will wait for your updates.
If possible, please create a fresh installation (with the default WordPress theme and only WPML & ACF plugins are active) on SiteGround. Then make sure the bug exists or not.
Just wanted to confirm that all works perfectly on the live installation. Thanks very much for your help once again, we very much appreciate it.
In case this helps anyone else encountering a similar problem (a critical error warning appears when accessing some of the ACF options in the left hand WordPress menu), the solution to the issue in our case was to deactivate the Memcached option included as part of the caching options offered by our hosting provider (Siteground).
